Matthew McConaughey says too often political figures are trying to stir up Hollywood-style drama, and leadership doesn't "need to look like an episode of 'The Real Housewives.'"
"I'm in the entertainment business. Our leadership and our leaders don't need to be in the entertainment business," the "Interstellar" actor said to applause at a National Governors Association event in Salt Lake City on Friday focused on culture and political polarization.
"You know when you see me in a film, that is basically fictional. I've read a script. I'm playing a character — that's not the role that the leaders of our nation need to be playing," McConaughey told Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D).
"So much of America almost wants to watch the car wreck," McConaughey said.
McConaughey, who's openly flirted with a political run over the years — he announced in 2021 he wouldn't launch a gubernatorial bid against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) — fielded a question from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) about potentially making the switch from Hollywood to Washington.
"I've thought about running for political office, getting into this category," McConaughey replied.
"I'm on a learning tour, and have been for probably the last six years of understanding what this category means and what it takes. Do I have the instincts and intellect that it would be a good fit for me, and I would be a good fit for it?" the "Greenlights" author said.
Asked by Polis the best way to "excite and move the culture," McConaughey said, "Celebrities and a lot of people in my industry mostly lean to the left. Many of them lean further into what I would call an illiberal left. Lot of us are guilty of the same thing we're talking about from the other side ... a default opening invalidation of the other side," McConaughey said.
"My industry cannot lead with, "Well all hierarchies are tyrannical, period.' No, that's not a default fact," the 54-year-old Academy Award winner said.
"We can't lead with, 'Well, if you don't believe in abortion then you're anti-woman.' We can't lead with that. 'Well, the word means more and is more important than your intent.' We can't lead with that," he continued.
The entertainment industry, McConaughey said, must "watch its tongue out of the gate because it's coming from the left, and at least 50 percent stereotypically of the country is going, 'Oh, you're left."
"So we have to open that conversation with our opening statements and not invalidate a moderate or conservative view out of the gate, which we're guilty of doing to an extent," he said.
